A pervert who possessed a 171-page ‘step-by-step paedophile manual’ and had amassed more than 10,000 indecent images of children has been jailed.

Chester Crown Court heard that when police visited married father-of one Nicholas Simon Smith’s home in Bollington in February 2017 they found a computer and USB sticks with thousands of illegal sexual images and video clips of children.

Prosecutor Jayne Morris told the court that among the documents recovered from his devices was a 171-page ‘paedophile manual’ entitled How To Practise Child Love - A Paedo’s Guide which billed itself as a ‘step-by-step guide in how to engage in safe and harmless love with a child’.

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Briefly viewing the document during proceedings Judge David Hale said the manual was ‘absolutely repulsive’.

Miss Morris told the court that in addition to the manual, police analysis had found 133 Category A indecent images of children, 391 Category B examples and 10,313 in Category C.

Miss Morris said that the defendant’s collection of illegal images had been gathered over a period of more than 10 years and he had begun the behaviour in his mid to late 20s with the offending becoming more frequent and compulsive as time progressed.

The court heard he told police in interviews that he had sought out material of girls aged around 10 or 11 and blamed ‘family and work pressures’ for his behaviour.

Smith, 41, pleaded guilty to seven counts of possession of indecent images of children, possession of the manual, possession of indecent computer generated images depicting children and possession of extreme pornography.

Defending, Mark Connor said that the manual had been downloaded by Smith along ‘with a lot of other stuff’ and there was never any suggestion that there had been any contact offences.